Debba Haupert, Roger Bora, Anne Castleberry at SummitUp 2010

Attended the SummitUp 2010 Digital Media Conference yesterday at Sinclair College in Dayton.  It was a day crammed full of great key-note speakers and wonderful break-out sessions with a wide variety of social media topics to choose from.

Key notes included:

• John Moore- Creating a Talkable Brand
• Pete Blackshaw-Social Media metrics, reputation management, consumer engagement and organizational alignment.
• Steve Lance- What’s Your Big Idea?
• Brian Solis- Fully leveraging social media across your organization to meet your goals.

The break-out sessions had dynamic speakers as well, including my friends and colleagues, Carole Baker, Kevin Dugan, Debba Haupert, Kendra Ramirez and Michael Rubin. Check out this link to see the list of all of the break-out session speakers and their topics.  I spent time with David Esrati in Comment Moderation, Kevin Dugan in Integrating Earned & Paid Media, Debba Haupert, Bill Pote & Carole Baker in Building A Community and finally a panel representing three different colleges for a session on Social Media on Campus (Robert Zinkan, Kevin Schultz & Ed Vanderbush).

Here’s the conference in less than two minutes through the eyes of my Droid Original.

LinkedIn is not just for job search; in fact it is the premier place to network with the right professionals for your industry. You can establish business relationships, find clients or customers, discover breaking industry news in discussion Groups and share your own expertise with others around the globe. Want some tips on maximizing groups? Check this post out by Dave Taylor of Intuitive Systems.

No matter your path to a professional networking site, it is imperative to highlight your personal brand and share your experience, talents and strengths in the best possible light. There are many free tutorials on the LinkedIn site to help you learn. The IHM Job Search Ministry Group in Cincinnati offers a free monthly “One Stop Job Search” Workshop that covers everything from writing resumes and cover letters to networking and on-line job search strategies including LinkedIn. (Disclosure: I teach the LinkedIn portion of the free workshop for IHM JSM.) Better yet, find a LinkedIn consultant or small group lab class for individualized attention and knowledge on tips & tricks to maximize this great tool.

C3: Creating Connections Consulting, LLC, offers specialized LinkedIn Lab classes for Women.  This program is limited to just four women per class for maximum individual attention, but at group pricing. You can find more information here. C3 also offers group training classes for the general public throughout the year and individual coaching and training.

C3 is proud to be a service provider for Act Three in Blue Ash.  Act Three focuses on assisting women in charting their next phase of life and offers many great seminars and workshops for women. C3 provides group and private training for clients of Act Three. Our next class at Act Three is on October 6th and includes a detailed analysis of your completed LinkedIn profile in addition to the lab training class: a great combination offer!

No matter the resource that you use, it is most important that you have established your professional presence online.

Facebook-the Movie

The process of Facebook Profile deletion was recently featured on Cincinnati’s WLWT Channel 5 Evening News. The news station had been approached by several viewers who, for various reasons, wanted to delete their Facebook profiles.  In one case, a minor’s Facebook profile had been hacked and the renegade user was posting information in the minor’s name.

The parents were not receiving assistance from Facebook, so they turned to the news station for help in addressing the issue. My company, C3: Creating Connections Consulting, LLC does a lot of work with Facebook Pages for business clients and we present Social Networking/Reputation Management Seminars for local schools and parenting organizations in Cincinnati. Channel 5 called upon me to offer advice on how to handle these types of situations in an on-air interview. You can watch the Channel 5 newscast here.

In the event that you would like to delete your account, here are the steps do it:

For temporary removal:

1. Go to Account Settings in the Account Tab drop down box in the upper right corner of your screen
2. Scroll down to the last item: “Deactivate Account”
3. Click the hyper-link and follow instructions

Deactivating the account vs.deletion is a good choice if you think you may want to use Facebook again in the future. Deactivation removes your profile from view and search immediately; but all of your information will be retained.

Permanent Deletion:

1. Go to the Help Center Link at the bottom of your home screen (it will be on the far right)
2. Use the Search Box for “How Do I Delete My Account”- Facebook does not make it easy for you to find this process!
3. Sometimes this search may show up on the right hand side of the Help page under “common searches”
4. You will be taken to a box that explains that you will not be able to reactivate your account or retrieve any of the data or info that is stored on it.
5. To continue, press “Submit”

Now you no longer have a profile on Facebook!

Please find the direct link for Deleting An Account here.

If you would like to watch the step-by-step process, you can view the Channel 5 news cast here.

Cross-posted on Michelle Beckham’s Blog.

Steering Committee Announcement

Image Via AP Photos

My former company, Cincinnati based Procter & Gamble, has taken social media to new heights with their Old Spice Guy campaign. They have an eye-catching interactive web-site that highlights some creatively unique commercials as they move to re-brand a revered 70+ year old product. One set of ads features the Old Spice Guy, shirtless, wrapped in a towel and standing just outside of the shower area of a bathroom delivering personalized messages from fans and followers of the Old Spice Facebook Page, Twitter Account and Old Spice Blog.

Here is the latest commercial to go viral in which Old Spice Guy proposes on behalf of a fan to his girl friend who apparently later said “yes!” Read more about this event via Mashable and see the fan’s original tweet here.

The Old Spice Website landing page does a great job to capture the reader’s attention and keep them hooked with some on-line interaction and various calls to action. They have separate tabs and main page sections for the following:

• Products
• Videos
• Racing
• Downloads
• Where to Buy
• Blog
• Swag
• Clear calls to action to follow on Twitter and Like on Facebook Watch on YouTube
• Contest to win Nascar Racer Tony Stewart’s Towel

The ability to have the Brand Voice (Old Spice Guy) interact directly with customers via personalized messages gleaned from social media sites is brilliant and leads to an increase in viral sharing on those same sites.

The message is clear that Old Spice is NOT your grandfather’s brand anymore. Would love to know your thoughts.

SummitUp was the latest Social Media Conference in the Southern Ohio area. It followed closely on the heels of the Cincinnati Digital Hub non-Conference on 9/24-9/25. SummitUp was an absolutely stunning event! The line-up of Key-note speakers and break-out session presenters included some big names in the media world as well as some of the reigning local twitterati. Take a look at the Key-Note line-up:

Kevin Dugan
Director of Marketing at Empower MediaMarketing, Founder of Cincinnati Social Media
Topic: “What’s Your Story? Storytelling’s Link to Social Media Marketing Success

Artie Issac
Public Speaker | SpeakerSite co-founder | Young Isaac co-founder | marketer, teacher, speaker, writer
Topic: “Social Media as a Vehicle for Cretivity”

Bob Garfield
Columnist, Critic, Essayist, Pundit, International Lecturer & Broadcast Personality
Topic: “No, Tuesday’s No Good. Let Me Get Back to You After the Apocalypse”

Lewis Howes
Author of the LinkedIn Book “LinkedWorking” | Founder of Sports Executives Association | Sports Social Media Consultant
Topic: LinkedIn

Chris Brogan
President, New Marketing Labs- a Social Marketing Agency
Topic: The Importance of Trust in the Digital Age

Check out the complete list of Breakout Session Presenters and their topics here.

The speakers were engaging and offered up some great tips and new strategies. I especially liked Brian LeCount’s break-out session on the power of Blogs and SEO. He made such a good case for making Blogs a central part of your strategy, that after seeing the data, it became a moment of “why hadn’t I thought of this before???” Another practical application “aha” was Lewis Howes’ emphasis on increasing search with your LinkedIn profile. I happened to make all of the recommended changes as he presented them live and saw my profile move up in the search rankings for my “key words” right in front of my eyes!

Kevin Dugan kept the images of cave animals dancing in my head for days, while Artie Isaac inspired me to ‘un-plug and to breathe deeply’. Love his advice to take 30 minutes out of every day to think & create. Bob Garfield captured my attention with his focus on the changing tides of traditional media and gave frank answers to the audience question of the future of careers in radio and other media.

Lewis Howes (two sport collegiate All American) kept me fascinated with his re-enactment of his award-winning pole-vault jump. I literally pictured him flying over the bar and landing safely onto the mat! Beautiful segue into Success with LinkedIn, giving tips that are not widely known. Chris Brogan, as the finale, was a wonderful close to the day. He is so down-to-earth and one of the most authentically transparent “gurus” out there. Loved everything that he had to say about social media, especially the admonition that as companies, we need to “grow bigger ears” to be in tune with what our customers are saying. It is the customers who are controlling the brand message.

Biggest personal take away for me was hearing Chris Brogan emphasize the importance of giving back and rallying groups of people together to affect change. I believe this whole-heartedly! Social media is about creating conversations and building relationships based on trust. Imagine the difference you can make when operating in an authentic and transparent manner. Chris detailed his idea of donating the cost of 2 lattes to help send a young woman in need to college. The message went viral and the money was raised in 22 minutes!  I have the greatest respect for Chris’s work and the difference that he is making in the world.

Chris signing a copy of his new book "Trust Agents"